Eating Amnesia

Reading or watching television while eating compels people to increase their consumption, studies have shown. One likely reason: Preoccupation dulls taste perception. Study participants created their own drink made with their preferred proportions of grenadine syrup and water. At the same time, they tried to memorize either a string of seven digits or just a single number. The people who attempted to memorize the large number used much more of the sweet syrup compared with the others. Yet both groups rated their drinks as similarly sweet and pleasant. Other experiments that tested awareness of salty and sour flavors had similar results. When flavor doesn't register, fullness probably doesn't, either, says study coauthor Reine C. Van der Wal, a researcher at Radboud University in the Netherlands.